


Don't Marry Him, Marry Me

by Hugo_falcon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Forced Marriage, Love, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hugo_falcon/pseuds/Hugo_falcon
Summary: Your parents are trying to force you to get married. Trapped in a difficult situation, you worry you'll be forced to go through with it. But it looks like help is just beyond the horizon, and perhaps you will be reunited with your true love.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Reader, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Reader, Reader & Padma Patil, Ron Weasley & Reader
Kudos: 23





	Don't Marry Him, Marry Me

The sky hung thick with heavy grey clouds smothering you, at the edge of the world, the mountains stood basked in ice that for once spread further down until it coated everywhere. Frost lay heavy on the grounds of your parent's manor. It was a bleak day, one that fitted the occasion like handcuffs around a wrist.

On the polished oak of your desk, an old wooden clock tick, tick, ticked away the seconds, minutes, hours of your freedom. You close your eyes, not wanting to waste your final moments of freedom but lacking the energy to move from your bed. Inside your head, you hunt through until you find a place where you're with her.

**************  
Her soft mane rested on your lap, your eyes were burning from the brutal hours of research you had done into the ancient Aztecs the night prior, and as such, Hermione had agreed to read to you rather than you having to read. Her voice was like caramel, and even if you hadn’t been obsessed with the book Hermione was reading, you know you could've listened to it for hours.

The sun beat down on Hogwarts; Summer was coming, but there was still shade to be found on the grounds of Hogwarts. You reach out, running your hand across her head and hearing the slight quiver in her voice as she relaxed against you. Mischief formed in your mind and you smiled slightly, moving your hand down to her jaw, cupping it and running it across the sensitive spots on her skin.

Hermione carried on, valiantly, but after a few moments, she gave up and captured your lips with her own. The book slid from Hermione’s hand, she sat up, straddling your waist and pulling tight to you. You twisted and slid your lips over her skin, smiling at the way she shook before a slight cough behind you forced the two of you to separate.

“Keep it PG please, girls,” Professor Flitwick said, his tone was kind but pointed.

“Yes sir,” You promised, smiling when you saw Hermione a stuttering mess. Gently, you pushed her to the side so she was no longer straddling you since she seemed to have lost the ability to move from embarrassment. Professor Flitwick smiled and continued.

“I can’t wait until after school when we can be alone,” Hermione whispers, you were both in your final year at school and you were both looking forward to living together after Hogwarts. Hermione liked to whisper to you about how grocery shopping would be, how cooking together would be, fantasies and scenarios that right now could only be dreams.

“Me neither,” You agree, smiling slightly. Hermione’s eyes filled with a sad affection and started to look away, but you caught her face and pulled her in to look at you, “What’s up?”

“I just… It’s nothing. It’ll happen in its own time, I-” Hermione started, but cut herself off, fighting against the two sides of her brain you knew too well, the side that was afraid you wouldn’t want her, the side that was still afraid you’d hurt her and she’d feel like the only different girl at Hogwarts. The only one who liked girls.

“Tell me,” You whispered, and she finally looked you in the eyes.

“I just… you haven’t told your parents. I told mine, I just… I know it’s nothing to do with me, I…. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, I-” Hermione starts, you feel your insides tighten with nerves and fear but the thought that Hermione couldn’t quite believe you loved her as much as she loved you without telling them finally forced your hand.

“Will you help me write the letter? I’m scared,” You tell her and Hermione nods, she doesn’t give you empty platitudes like it will be fine or they’ll always love you because she knows that there are no guarantees. Instead, the look she fixes you with is the same look she gave you before she left to go Horcrux hunting with Harry, the same look before the battle of Hogwarts, the look that said I don’t know what’s going to happen but I love you.

**************  
The knock on your bedroom door echoes, your mother appears, marches in, a hurricane messing everything up, a force too powerful to fight. She hangs the dress on your wardrobe door, and you stare at the white wedding dress with disgust. The dress was a sign of you surrendering to what your mother thought was better than you being with someone you loved - you being with a man. You weren’t ready to surrender, you weren’t ready to give up, you wanted Hermione and had tried to run several times but you couldn’t.

Apparation out of your parent’s mansion had been disabled. You couldn’t cross their wards on foot without a family member or one of your parents guards catching you and forcing you to stay within the grounds. The only way you would get out of this place was via marriage to Blaise Zabini like your parents ordered.

“You promised me you’d never make me have an arranged marriage,” You accuse your mother quietly.

“I never thought you’d fall onto such a depraved path,” Your mother tells you.

“What? For loving a woman I’m depraved?” You argue back, but there’s no volume to your voice. Your mother sighs.

“You’ll understand one day when you and Blaise have had a few kids of your own,” Your mother tells you and you shake your head, rolling onto you back and staring up at the ceiling of your four-poster bed. She walks out, lingering for only a moment before leaving. The door opens again and your best-friend enters.

Padma doesn’t say anything, just lays beside you like you used to do when you were both younger.

“There’s no way out,” Padma tells you quietly, “I looked, but I can’t find a single point where you can escape from,”

“I know,” You whisper, the hope you’d felt briefly dying. You both lay there, Padma’s suppose to be doing your hair. Padma was the only one who you’d told about the situations under which you were getting married, your friends didn’t need to know the true sadness that this day would bring. As a result of your silence about why you were marrying Blaise, not Hermione, half the members of your friendship group that your parents had consented to you inviting had cancelled and labelled themselves conscientious objectors.

Padma was here though, she’d never leave you, that you knew even if together the two of you couldn’t think your way out of this situation she would still be here as moral support.

  
“I tried looking for a loophole in the marriage laws. Even if a bride is forced to be there but completes the ceremony, the marriage is considered valid as long as the family consents, it’s disgusting,” Padma tells you. You close your eyes, and then a knock on the door sounds again, Padma stands up and opens the door.

“Oh, hi, uh… I was… looking for-” A familiar voice says, you sit up eyes fixating on the figure as Padma steps back and lets them in.

“Harry!” You greet, jumping up and hugging him tightly, desperately clinging to some feeling of the outside world of a connection to Hermione. He shoves you back, and you land on your bed with a thump.

“What the hell are you playing at! Look, I can understand if you fell in love with someone else, or that you just don’t love Hermione anymore, but she didn’t deserve to be left like you left her! Not returning her letters, not-” Harry starts to rant, and you pull your legs to your chest resting your head on them.

“SHUT UP!” Padma yells a yellow light escaping her wand and Harry quickly finds his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as Padma’s ferocious, protective, best-friend instincts kick in, “She doesn’t deserve that!”

Harry makes a muffled sound, but Padma raises her hand, silencing him.

“No, shut up and listen. She doesn’t want to marry him, she’s trapped, the anti-apparition wards, the guards by the front gate? It’s not about gate-crashers it’s about keeping her here,” Padma tells him, “She’s stuck. Use your head and see that,”

You reach out, undoing the spell and sighing.

“Padma I thought-” You start, you’d sworn her to secrecy but she cuts you off.

“I’m not standing by and letting someone yell at you for something you don’t even want,” Padma tells you.

  
“I’m so sorry,” Harry finally says, finding his voice, “We’ll get you out. Hermione will-”

“Never know the true reason I’m marrying Blaise.” You tell him firmly.

“What? You want me to lie?” Harry asks.

“Yes. Look, I need you to tell Hermione that I love Blaise, tell her that I’m sorry, that I fell in love that he promised me the world and I needed him,” You make him promise, “It’s the only way that I know she’ll move on if she thinks I’m happy,”

“No. No. NO! I’m not letting this happen! I’m going to change this!” Harry promises.

“We’ve tried everything, we got nowhere,” You tell him, but Harry stands up straight and marches out of the room, a firm set to his shoulders. Your mother reappears, and you're forced to the stool while Padma messes with the hair on your head.

  
An hour later, and you’re stood facing Blaise Zabini. He’s handsome, there’s no denying that, but you don’t love him. You aren’t even truly attracted to him. He wrote his vows, and he says them to you in a voice like honey, but your eyes still scan around hopefully, desperately looking for anyone to save you.

“Does anybody know a reason why these two can’t wed?” The ministry officiate asks.

A bushy mane suddenly tumbles to the floor, the girl rolls over and over before finally getting to her feet. There’s grass in her hair, grass on her jeans, grass stains all over and she’s here.

“Oh good! I’m not too late!” Hermione pants, she looks queasy which is how you know to scan the skies - and yes, there’s a broomstick in the air, three in fact. One for Ron, one for Harry and one held in Ron’s hand that you guess Hermione fell off.

“I thought I told Harry to lie,” You say, your heart fluttering inside your chest.

“He’s an awful liar,” Hermione tells you honestly, “Or you are? You’re both awful at it.”

“Is that an insult?” You ask and Hermione giggles.

“Maybe,” She tells you with a smile, “Now come on, let’s get out of here,”

She grabs your hand, dragging you away from Blaise. Ron tosses the broomstick down, and Hermione pales slightly muttering encouragement to herself as she takes it in your hand.

  
“WAIT!” Your mother yells.

“DON’T WAIT!” Padma yells out excitedly, “GO! GO! GO!”

Hermione takes off hard, soaring up into the sky. You make her pause in front of your family and friends, and then you pull her into a passionate kiss. Down below, you hear a whoop, a cheer of support, and then you pull back. Hermione catches you, pulling you closer, kissing you harder.

“I missed you,” Hermione whispers.

“I missed you, I love you so much, I was so scared,” You tell her back.

“Come on,” Hermione says, “Let’s get out of here,”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
